Addition reactions polar mechanisms

Hydrostannation of highly polarized a,)8-unsaturated nitriles leads to the formation of N-stannylketenimines 31, 33) in what is considered to be a polar 1,4-addition. Thus, polar mechanisms are ascribed to reactions leading to either 1-cyanoalkyl or ketenimine adducts. 

The initial discussion in this chapter will focus on addition reactions. The discussion is restricted to reactions that involve polar or ionic mechanisms. There are other important classes of addition reactions which are discussed elsewhere these include concerted addition reactions proceeding through nonpolar transition states (Chapter 11), radical additions (Chapter 12), photochemical additions (Chapter 13), and nucleophilic addition to electrophilic alkenes (Part B, Chi iter 1, Section 1.10). 

Before beginning a detailed discussion of alkene reactions, let s review briefly some conclusions from the previous chapter. We said in Section 5.5 that alkenes behave as nucleophiles (Lewis bases) in polar reactions. The carbon-carbon double bond is electron-rich and can donate a pair of electrons to an electrophile (Lewis acid), for example, reaction of 2-methylpropene with HBr yields 2-bromo-2-methylpropane. A careful study of this and similar reactions by Christopher Ingold and others in the 1930s led to the generally accepted mechanism shown in Figure 6.7 for electrophilic addition reactions. 

The mechanism of free-radical addition follows the pattern discussed in Chapter 14 (pp. 894-895). The method of principal component analysis has been used to analyze polar and enthalpic effect in radical addition reactions. A radical is generated by... 

Benzoyl peroxide appears to decompose entirely by the radical mechanism, the reaction being rather insensitive either to solvent changes or to the addition of acid catalysts. The unsymmetrical peroxide, -methoxy-/> -nitrobenzoyl peroxide, behaves quite differently. It will decompose either by the polar mechanism or by the radical mechanism.821 The radical mechanism prevails in benzene and the acids produced are -nitrobenzoic and anisic in equal amounts. In the more polar solvents anisic acid is formed to a lesser extent than is >-nitrobenzoic acid, because the carboxy inversion reaction (rearrangement) competes successfully. The reaction is subject to acid catalysis... 

While at Leeds from 1924 to 1930, Ingold s laboratory focused on three main topics of research (1) the nature and mechanism of orienting effects of groups in aromatic substitution (mainly nitration) (2) the study of prototropic rearrangements (shifts of H+) and aniontropic rearrangements (shifts of anions) as the ionic mechanisms of tautomerism and (3) the effect of polar substituents on the velocity and orientation of addition reactions to unsaturated systems. One of Ingold s students at Leeds, John William Baker, wrote a widely read book on tautomerism. 16... 

The most significant change in these reactions is the formation of the carbon-nncleophile bond so, in both types of mechanism, the reaction is termed a nucleophilic addition. It should be noted that the polarization in the carbonyl group leads to nucleophilic addition, whereas the lack of polarization in the C=C donble bond of an alkene leads to electrophilic addition reactions (see Chapter 8). Carbonyl groups in carboxylic acid derivatives undergo a similar type of reactivity to nucleophiles, but the... 

In this study, benzaldehyde and benzaldehyde-methyllithium adduct were fully optimized at HF/6-31G and their vibrational frequencies were calculated. The authors used MeLi instead of lithium pinacolone enolate, since it was assumed that the equilibrium IBs are not much different for the MeLi addition and lithium enolate addition. Dehalogena-tion and enone-isomerization probe experiments detected no evidence of a single electron transfer to occur during the course of the reaction. The primary carbonyl carbon kinetic isotope effects and chemical probe experiments led them to conclude that the reaction of lithium pinacolone enolate with benzaldehyde proceeds via a polar mechanism. 

The addition of RLi and other nucleophiles to carbonyl functions in general proceeds via one of the two possible reaction pathways, polar addition (PL) and electron transfer (ET)-radical coupling (RC) sequence (equation 5). Current reaction design for the synthetic purpose of additions of common nucleophiles to aldehydes and ketones is mostly based on the polar mechanism, but apparently the ET process is involved in some reactions of, for example, Grignard reagents Mechanistically there are three possible variations the PL pathway, the ET rate-determining ET-RC route and the RC rate-determining ET-RC route. 

One of the most general and useful reactions of alkenes and alkynes for synthetic purposes is the addition of electrophilic reagents. This chapter is restricted to reactions which proceed through polar intermediates or transition states. Several other classes of addition reactions are also of importance, and these are discussed elsewhere. Nucleophilic additions to electrophilic alkenes were covered in Chapter 1, and cycloadditions involving concerted mechanisms will be encountered in Chapter 6. Free-radical addition reactions are considered in Chapter 10. 

The SET mechanism is known to be operative for reactions of Grignard reagents and aromatic ketones such as benzophenone ". In reactions of Grignard reagents and aliphatic ketones and aldehydes, the polar mechanism seems to be major . The reactions of aliphatic ketones and aldehydes are more widely ntilized in organic syntheses. Thns, at first, the polar addition mechanism was examined. 

If X—Y is an electrophilic polar molecule such as CH,I, oxidative addition reactions tend to proceed by SN2 mechanisms involving two-electron transfer (Eq. 15.99) or via radical, one-electron transfer mechanisms (Eq. 15.100). 

Progress in the preparation and isolation of different hypohaiites [92] results in a substantial number of publications exploring the addition of these materials to fluoroolefins. In contrast to addition of hypofluorites, which at this time is viewed as a radical process, a polar mechanism was proposed for addition of poly-fluorinated hypochlorites and hypobromites to olefins. Reactions of fluoroolefins... 

If the addition of a Grignard reagent to a carbonyl compound leads to the formation of such an unexpected alcohol, it is clear that this reaction cannot have proceeded according to the polar mechanism outlined in the upper row of Figure 10.27. If the respective addition does not produce anything hut the expected alcohol, the polar mechanism provides the easiest explanation. Nevertheless, the radical mechanism could also have applied—provided, though, that the isomerization H —> iso-H would have been much slower than the radical annihilation reaction H — I. 

Shi and coworkers found that vinyl acetates 68 are viable acceptors in addition reactions of alkylarenes 67 catalyzed by 10 mol% FeCl2 in the presence of di-tert-butyl peroxide (Fig. 15) [124]. (S-Branched ketones 69 were isolated in 13-94% yield. The reaction proceeded with best yields when the vinyl acetate 68 was more electron deficient, but both donor- and acceptor-substituted 1-arylvinyl acetates underwent the addition reaction. These reactivity patterns and the observation of dibenzyls as side products support a radical mechanism, which starts with a Fenton process as described in Fig. 14. Hydrogen abstraction from 67 forms a benzylic radical, which stabilizes by addition to 68. SET oxidation of the resulting electron-rich a-acyloxy radical by the oxidized iron species leads to reduced iron catalyst and a carbocation, which stabilizes to 69 by acyl transfer to ferf-butanol. However, a second SET oxidation of the benzylic radical to a benzylic cation prior to addition followed by a polar addition to 68 cannot be excluded completely for the most electron-rich substrates. 

Although the reactions of halogen with aromatics in polar solvents usually lead to a substitution of halogen for II in the aromatic, the first step seems to be the addition of a positive haloiiium ion to the aromatic and so is similar to the olefin reaction. The mechanism is presumed to be... 

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